Comments on Haq's Musings: India's Sane Voice Warns Against Smugness

Here's an Op Ed by Indian di...

2012-01-11T19:59:21.303-08:00

Here's an Op Ed by Indian diplomat and parliamentarian Sashi Tharoor on his recent visit to Pakistan:

I write these words in Lahore, in the midst of a brief but hugely interesting visit to Pakistan. As one who has always advocated hard-headed realism in dealing with our neighbour, while greatly respecting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s vision that the highest strategic interest of both countries lies in development and the eradication of poverty rather than in military one-upmanship, I have begun to think of how much we could both gain if we replaced our current narrative of hostility with one of hope.
What is the way forward for India? It is clear that we want peace more than Pakistan does, because we have more at stake when peace is violated: we cannot grow and prosper without peace, and that is the one thing Pakistan can give us that we cannot do without.
By denying us the peace we crave, Pakistan can undermine our vital national interests, above all that of our own development. Investors shun war zones; traders are wary of markets that might explode at any time; tourists do not travel to hotels that might be commandeered by fanatical terrorists. These are all serious hazards for a country seeking to grow and flourish in a globalising world economy.
Even if Pakistan cannot do us much good, it can do us immense harm, and we must recognise this in formulating our policy approaches to it. Foreign policy cannot be built on a sense of betrayal any more than it can be on illusions of love. Pragmatism dictates that we work for peace with Pakistan precisely so that we can serve our own people’s needs better.
So we must engage Pakistan because we cannot afford not to. And yet — the problem of terrorism incubated in Pakistan will not be solved overnight. Extremism is not a tap that can be turned off once it is open; the evil genie cannot be forced back into the bottle. The proliferation of militant organisations, training camps and extremist ideologies has acquired a momentum of its own. A population as young, as uneducated, as unemployed and as radicalised as Pakistan’s will remain a menace to their own society as well as to ours.
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Let us show a magnanimity and generosity of spirit that in itself stands an outside chance of persuading Pakistanis to rethink their attitude to us.
The big questions — the Kashmir dispute and Pakistan’s use of terrorism as an instrument of policy — will require a great deal more groundwork and constructive, step-by-step action for progress to be made. But by showing accommodativeness, sensitivity and pragmatic generosity, India might be able to turn the bilateral narrative away from the logic of intractable hostility in which both countries have been mired for too long.
The joker in the pack remains the Pakistani Army. Until the military men are convinced that peace with India is in their self-interest, they will remain the biggest obstacles to it. One hope may lie in the extensive reach of the Pakistani military apparatus and its multiple business and commercial interests.
Perhaps India could encourage its firms to trade with enterprises owned by the Pakistani Army, in the hope of giving the military establishment a direct stake in peace.
The world economic crisis should give us an opportunity to promote economic integration with our neighbours in the subcontinent who look to the growing Indian market to sell their goods and maintain their own growth. But as long as South Asia remains divided by futile rivalries and some continue to believe that terrorism can be a useful instrument of their strategic doctrines, that is bound to remain a distant prospect. If India and Pakistan can embrace an interrelated future on our subcontinent, geography can become an instrument of opportunity in a mutual growth story and history can bind rather than divide. It is a future worth striving for, in the interests of both our peoples.

http://www.asianage.com/columnists/geography-hope-787

Here's an Express Tribune report on Seeds of Peace in Pakistan:

Seeds of Peace, an international youth based organisation established in 1993, aims to empower young individuals from conflict areas to help bridge differences. Aiming to create a better understanding amongst the youth to work towards ‘co-existence’ and ‘reconciliation’, the organisation was the brainchild of American journalist John Wallach. The first such programme involved about 50 young participants from the Arab-Israel conflict zone who were invited to the Seeds of Peace International Camp in Maine, USA.

Fahad Ali Kazmi, the joint secretary of Seeds of Peace-Pakistan, said the basic aim here is to incorporate the voice of youth in conflict areas. “We started the mock parliament last year to sensitise youth in conflict areas to help appreciate the counter narratives of global issues,” said Kazmi, who ‘graduated’ from an international camp in 2002 and returned to Pakistan as a ‘Pakistani Seed’.

Seeds of Peace came to Lahore in 2001, the same year it opened its offices in Mumbai and the next year in Kabul. Every year 10 to 12 young individuals from Pakistan and India are invited to the United States for the 250-day camp where they interact with youth from across the world.

Seeds of Peace-Pakistan’s first mock parliament session was held last year, aiming to acquaint the youth in conflict areas of India and Pakistan with a political understanding of issues on both sides. Last year, a mock Indian parliament was held in Pakistan by the Seeds of Peace-Pakistan and a similar event was held in India whereby Indian Seeds engaged in a mock Pakistani parliament. The concept, said Kazmi, is to eradicate prejudice and build bridges to better understand one another.

This year, Seeds of Peace-Pakistan will organise a Mock Afghan Parliament, whereby Pakistani youths will be educated about the workings of the Afghan parliament and also assigned roles and positions to take. “With Afghanistan and Pakistan engaged in a political conflict, we thought of engaging Pakistani youth in understanding the Afghan perspective,” Kazmi said.

Teams from across Lahore will participate in the event. Between 25 and 30 young people from different schools across Lahore including Beaconhouse School System, Divisional Public School, Lahore Grammar School and Crescent Model High School are participating in the event.

A workshop will be conducted by the Seeds of Peace-Pakistan on November 20 to educate the participating youth about the Afghan constitution and the dynamics of the Afghan parliament.

“The Pakistani Seeds are working in close collaboration with their Afghan counterparts to understand the political dynamics of the Afghan parliament,” said Kazmi while talking about the workshop which precedes the mock parliament that is to be held later in the month. At the end of the workshop a three-day mock parliamentary session will be convened for which three to four major areas of debate will be identified and a sample Afghan parliament formulated. The three-day mock parliamentary session will end on November 27.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/289754/seeds-of-peace-fc-college-to-host-mock-afghan-parliament/

There was an article in Forbes magazine issue of M...

2011-07-23T17:52:56.071-07:00

There was an article in Forbes magazine issue of March 4, 2002, by Steve Forbes titled "India, Meet Austria-Hungary" which compared India with the now defunct Austria-Hungary. Here is an excerpt from the text of that article:

Influential elements in India's government and military are still itching to go to war with Pakistan, even though Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has taken considerable political risks by moving against Pakistani-based-and-trained anti-India terrorist groups. Sure, Musharraf made a truculent speech condemning India's ``occupation'' of Kashmir, but that was rhetorical cover for cracking down on those groups. Washington should send New Delhi some history books for these hotheads; there is no human activity more prone to unintended consequences than warfare. As cooler heads in the Indian government well know, history is riddled with examples of parties that initiated hostilities in the belief that conflict would resolutely resolve outstanding issues.

Pericles of Athens thought he could deal with rival Sparta once and for all when he triggered the Peloponnesian War; instead his city-state was undermined and Greek civilization devastated.

Similarly, Hannibal brilliantly attacked Rome; he ended up not only losing the conflict but also setting off a train of events that ultimately led to the total destruction of Carthage. Prussia smashed France in 1870, annexing critical French territory for security reasons, but that sowed the seeds for the First World War. At the end of World War I the victorious Allies thought they had dealt decisively with German military power. Israel crushed its Arab foes in 1967, but long-term peace did not follow.

India is not a homogeneous state. Neither was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It attacked Serbia in the summer of 1914 in the hopes of destroying this irritating state after Serbia had committed a spectacular terrorist act against the Hapsburg monarchy. The empire ended up splintering, and the Hapsburgs lost their throne. And on it goes.

Getting back to the present, do Indian war hawks believe China will stand idly by as India tried to reduce Pakistan to vassal-state status? Do they think Arab states and Iran won't fund Muslim guerrilla movements in Pakistan, as well as in India itself? Where does New Delhi think its oil comes from (about 70%, mainly from the Middle East)? Does India think the U.S. will stand by impotently if it starts a war that unleashes nuclear weapons?

Here's BBC's Soutik Biswas on Indian reaction to recent events in Pakistan:

Sections of the Indian media and some pundits have been gloating about the fact that Osama Bin Laden was eventually found and killed in Pakistan by the US.

It is a familiar, triumphal "we-told-you-so" line, reminding the world that Pakistan was a haven for terrorists.

Some experts - egged on by a hysterical sabre-rattling media - have even been suggesting that India should also go into Pakistan and take out people like the cleric Hafiz Mohammad Saeed who have been blamed for plotting attacks against India. Foreign affairs guru Fareed Zakaria describes it as the rhetoric of India's strategic elite with its "Cold War fantasies".

Not surprisingly, this has evoked a harsh reaction from Pakistan Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir who warned against such "misadventures" which could lead to a "terrible catastrophe", and headlines in the Indian newspapers as 'Hit by US, Pakistan barks at India'.

Much of this reckless talk, of course, has its roots in the grievous losses India has suffered in violence planned and executed by groups across the border, climaxing in the nightmare of the 2008 Mumbai (Bombay) attacks. But, as many seasoned experts say, India needs to keep its calm and pursue a more hard-nosed pragmatic policy towards Pakistan.

So it is heartening to hear from sources in the Indian government that India believes in a more reasoned and sober approach to Pakistan.

India cannot, say the sources, use what they call a "giant swatter" approach to Pakistan, like the US. "Unlike US, we live next door to Pakistan, our ties are deeper, and we were once the same country," they say. Also, nuclear-armed Pakistan is no pushover, and India could burn its fingers badly if it attempted an operation like the one which took out Bin Laden.

Will Bin Laden's killing have an impact on India-Pakistan talks, which got off the ground in recent months after a long frozen silence?

Not really, say Indian authorities. ....

Here are excerpts from a Wall Street Journal Op Ed by Rupa Subramanya Dehejia on potential for India-Pakitan trade:

How does India fit into this picture? And can two nuclear-armed rivals with a fraught relationship meaningfully engage in trade and commerce with each other?

Trade is one of the engines of growth and development but in the case of Pakistan, this potentially important link with India is virtually missing. At present trade is roughly $2 billion a year.

Pakistan accounts for less than 1% of India’s trade and India less than 5% of Pakistan’s trade. Contrast this to the bilateral trade relationship following independence, when 70% of Pakistan’s trade was with India while more than 60% of India’s exports went to Pakistan.

According to Mohsin Khan of the Peterson Institute, economists estimate a “normal” trading relationship would be five to 10 times larger than the current amount.

There is also an estimated $2 billion to $3 billion a year in trade that takes place unofficially through third countries, especially the United Arab Emirates.

If this could be normalized as bilateral trade, it would occur at a much lower cost and therefore greater economic gain.

I’d argue that we must at least try to improve our economic relationship even if the political relationship is still frosty. The great exemplar here is the European Union, which was built on the premise that binding neighbors together economically was a prerequisite for ensuring peace and prosperity for all. We in India have yet to fully absorb this lesson. A prosperous Pakistan will not only be good for Pakistanis themselves but also good for us in India.

It’s time for the liberal commentators on both sides of the border to stop wringing their hands about the demise of a secular liberal democracy, because Pakistan hasn’t been that for some time, if it ever was.

While the support that the Indian intelligentsia has offered their counterparts in Pakistan following the assassination is heart-warming, it’s not consequential in the big picture. Liberals in Pakistan may fight on but it’s time for us in India to accept that Pakistan is an Islamic state with Islamic values and laws.

The crux here is that trade and commerce know no religious boundaries. We must work towards building a stronger bilateral relationship on that basis.

Sitting with Hindians its like Pakistan is about t...

2011-01-12T09:37:34.114-08:00

Sitting with Hindians its like Pakistan is about to be evaporated in thin air and patting each other or by themselves for being the expert sage of million years and vedant shaivite which pakistanis are not will show how deprived they are and there life b/c they are vegie deprived and dont believe in reincarnation .

Just watch pakistani T.V. Duniya Ptv Geo Sama Life is 99% usual .Some people dont bother to know if some Salman was killed b/c it never mattered in there life Thse Gov, Foreign Misters And Pakistani Presidents are focus of Hindians . There are two reasons for this

1. it is common to look whats outside your home doubting that you got worst deal than the neighbour Thats why you read books on pakistan pakistani and rest of India never heard of

2. B/c you coming from less starved family of India having money to come to USA have plenty of free time Instead of going to restaurant and blowing 200$ or malls spending as much or any club with the same value membership Yu choose to sit it out at home with your computer Actually its not bad idea i do the same .You think life stand still b/c some high fi families father is no more .Man on the street are as happy or sad as they were before 4111 as they ever will be.Go read Atish And Meherbanos Oxford English Eulogies and gush with crocodile tears As if those who dont publish in NYT or come onNDTV dont suffer when there father dies and only these people are tragedy prince princess

I am sure many Indians looking for Obama to bash P...

2010-11-07T18:15:10.031-08:00

I am sure many Indians looking for Obama to bash Pakistan (as that British novice PM Cameron did) would be sorely disappointed by the following statements Obama made to Indian students at St. Xavier's College in Mumbai:

"We want nothing more than a stable, prosperous and peaceful Pakistan".

"It may be surprising to some of you to hear me say this, but I am absolutely convinced that the country that has the biggest stake in Pakistan's success is India."

Here's more from the Washington Post today:

Obama commemorated the Nov. 26, 2008, massacre (in Mumbai) on his arrival Saturday when he laid a white rose at a memorial to the victims and spoke at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and Tower, a main target of the attack. But he infuriated many Indians by not mentioning Pakistan in his tribute, reinforcing the impression here that Obama cares less about India's grievances than he does about defending a key partner in the Afghanistan war.

The issue will probably come up again Monday, Obama's final day in India, when he appears with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before the U.S. and Indian media and later addresses the Indian Parliament. Obama could well face questions over his position on Kashmir, a religiously mixed region in the subcontinent's northwest that both India and Pakistan claim.

How he portrays the U.S. interest in Pakistan, whose weak government is defending itself against its own Taliban insurgency, will probably determine whether his visit here succeeds in convincing Indians that he is serious when he says, as he did Sunday, that "the U.S.-India relationship will be indispensable in shaping the 21st century."

Here are some excerpts from a piece by David Pilli...

2010-10-27T08:52:47.318-07:00

Here are some excerpts from a piece by David Pilling of Financial Times published recently:

(There have ben many a dire warning about Pakistan failing), yet Pakistan has survived. In its partial victories against Islamist militants it may even have made some kind of progress. It is all too easy to think of Pakistan as a failing – even a failed – state. But it might be better to see it as the state that refuses to fail.

To appreciate just how remarkable this is, cast your mind back to this dangerous year’s catalogue of fire and brimstone. First, following its victory in Swat, the army turned its attention on South Waziristan, bombarding militants in lawless areas bordering Afghanistan. Many considered that an important step, given the well-documented links between the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency and tribal militants, part of Pakistan’s quest for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan.

Second, and partly as a result of the army’s offensives, there has been a wave of counter-attacks on hotels, mosques and police stations. Last October, militants mounted a brazen raid on the supposedly impregnable headquarters of the 500,000-strong army. That led to alarm that men with beards and a less-than-glowing feeling towards America were getting perilously close to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

Third, Pakistan has had to adapt to a dramatic shift in US policy towards Afghanistan. In December, President Barack Obama ordered a surge of 30,000 extra troops, a military intensification that has sent militants scurrying across the border into Pakistan. Worse from Islamabad’s point of view, the US president has committed to drawing down those troops from next summer, a retreat, if it happens, that would once again leave Pakistan alone in a nasty neighbourhood.

Fourth, the economic outlook remains precarious. Pakistan just about avoided a balance of payments crisis which, at one point, saw its reserves dwindle to just one month’s import cover. But respite has come at the cost of being in hock to the International Monetary Fund, which has extended some $7bn in loans. With tax receipts at a miserable 9 per cent of output, it is unclear how it will make ends meet.

As if these man-made calamities were not enough, Pakistan has been drowning in the worst floods in its history. At one point, no less than one-fifth of the country was under water.....

Remarkably it has not been. Why not? A partial explanation for Pakistan’s staying power is that it has become an extortionary state that thrives on crisis...

There are more benign explanations too. The strength of civil society has helped. Many refugees from the floods, like those from Swat, have found temporary shelter with the networks of friends and relatives that bind the country together. The army’s response to the floods has also underscored, for better or worse, the efficiency of the state’s best-run institution. Even the civilian administration, weak and discredited as it is, has clung on. If, as now seems plausible, Mr Zardari can survive, power could yet be transferred from one democratically elected administration to another for the first time in Pakistan’s 63-year history.

One should not overstate Pakistan’s resilience. The world is rightly alarmed at the mayhem that rages at its centre. But, if you care to look on the bright side, you might conclude that, if Pakistan can survive a year like this, it can survive anything.

You often hear rhetoric about India-Pakistan frien...

2010-10-10T17:29:23.280-07:00

You often hear rhetoric about India-Pakistan friendship. But friendship is a two-way street.

Musharraf was very serious about making friends with India on his watch from 2000 to 2007. He offered significant concessions and tried very hard to reach an agreement with Delhi on Kashmir, but to no avail.

Instead of of responding positively, India stepped its hostility by opening a new front in starting a covert war in Pakistan via Afghanistan.

Here is how South Asia expert Stephen Cohen described India's ambivalent attitude toward Pakistan recently:

Indians do not know whether they want to play cricket and trade with Pakistan, or whether they want to destroy it. There is still no consensus on talking with Pakistan: sometimes the government and its spokesman claim that they do not want to deal with the generals, but when the generals are out of the limelight, they complain that the civilians are too weak to conclude a deal.

In addition to Kashmir, the other key and potentially more explosive issue between India and Pakistan is that Indus water.

A South African water expert and Harvard professor John Briscoe recently argued that Pakistan was woefully vulnerable to Indian manipulation of the timing of water flows of the Jhelum and Chenab; that the Indian press—unlike the Pakistani media—never noted the other country’s views on the issue, and was instructed on what to say by the Ministry of External Affairs; and that India lacked the leadership of a regional power, as Brazil had been magnanimous in similar disputes with Bolivia and Paraguay.

Here is the exact quote from Briscoe's piece published in April 2010:

Living in Delhi and working in both India and Pakistan, I was struck by a paradox. One country was a vigorous democracy, the other a military regime. But whereas an important part of the Pakistani press regularly reported India's views on the water issue in an objective way, the Indian press never did the same. I never saw a report which gave Indian readers a factual description of the enormous vulnerability of Pakistan, of the way in which India had socked it to Pakistan when filling Baglihar. How could this be, I asked? Because, a journalist colleague in Delhi told me, "when it comes to Kashmir – and the Indus Treaty is considered an integral part of Kashmir -- the ministry of external affairs instructs newspapers on what they can and cannot say, and often tells them explicitly what it is they are to say."

http://www.countercurrents.org/briscoe050410.htm

Here's an excerpt from NY Times story about declining power of Pakistan's feudal class:

For years, feudal lords reigned supreme, serving as the police, the judge and the political leader. Plantations had jails, and political seats were practically owned by families.

Instead of midwifing democracy, these aristocrats obstructed it, ignoring the needs of rural Pakistanis, half of whom are still landless and desperately poor more than 60 years after Pakistan became a state.

But changes began to erode the aristocrats’ power. Cities sprouted, with jobs in construction and industry. Large-scale farms eclipsed old-fashioned plantations. Vast hereditary lands splintered among generations of sons, and many aristocratic families left the country for cities, living beyond their means off sales of their remaining lands. Mobile labor has also reduced dependence on aristocratic families.

In Punjab, the country’s most populous province, and its most economically advanced, the number of national lawmakers from feudal families shrank to 25 percent in 2008 from 42 percent in 1970, according to a count conducted by Mubashir Hassan, a former finance minister, and The New York Times.

“Feudals are a dying breed,” said S. Akbar Zaidi, a Karachi-based fellow with the Carnegie Foundation. “They have no power outside the walls of their castles.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/world/asia/29feudal.html?_r=1&hp

In a presentation to Pakistani media, Gen Kayani reiterated his widely reported comments on the Pakistan Army’s view of the situation in Afghanistan and the way forward there.

History, unresolved issues, India’s military capability and its ‘Cold Start’ doctrine meant that Pakistan could not afford to let its guard down. Repeating a well-known formulation, Gen Kayani said: “We plan on adversaries’ capabilities, not intentions.”

The tough, matter-of-fact line on India was in stark contrast to that of Gen Kayani’s predecessor, Gen (retd) Musharraf, who tried hard to push for peace with India in his latter years in power.
------------------------
The general was particularly keen to highlight the threat posed by India’s ‘Cold Start’ doctrine. Turing the traditional theory of war on its head, ‘Cold Start’ would permit the Indian Army to attack before mobilising, increasing the possibility of a “sudden spiral escalation”, according to Gen Kayani.

The Pakistan Army’s concerns about ‘Cold Start’ are well known, but Gen Kayani went as far as to put a timeline on its implementation: two years for India to achieve partial implementation and five years for full.

If true, the strategic impact could be of the highest order: defence analysts have speculated that ‘Cold Start’ may lead the Pakistan Army to lower its nuclear threshold as a way of deterring any punitive strikes or rapid capture of territory by the Indian armed forces.

Yet, Gen Kayani was also keen to point out that he did not have a one-dimensional view of security. Despite the fact that India’s defence budget is “seven times” that of Pakistan’s “there has to be a balance between development and military spending,” the general said.

He also pleaded that “peace and stability in South Asia should not be made hostage to a single terrorist act of a non-state actor”, a reference to the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Refusing to talk to Pakistan would send a bad signal on two counts: one, the non-state actors would know that they have the power to nudge India and Pakistan towards war; and two, within India it would become clear that relations with Pakistan could be suspended indefinitely.

The comments on India, though, came only later in an extended Power Point Presentation that covered everything from the operations in Swat and South Waziristan to the “way forward” in Afghanistan. Gen Kayani seemed relatively pleased with the reaction his presentation received when first unveiled at a meeting of chiefs of defence staff of Nato and its allied countries in Brussels late last month.

Emphasising what he termed the “fundamentals”, he claimed that until the Afghan government improved its credibility and governance record and until the Afghan population began to change its perception that Isaf is not winning, the Afghan government would not be able to establish its writ and the local Taliban would not be “weaned off”.

But on Afghanistan, too, India featured in Gen Kayani’s comments. Rejecting India’s reported interest in training the Afghan National Army and the country’s police force, Gen Kayani argued that Pakistan had a more legitimate expectation to do so.

Taken together, Gen Kayani’s comments suggest that the possibility of a thaw in relations between India and Pakistan any time soon is low.

Both India and Pakistan appear to have firmly lapsed into the old pattern of highlighting the differences between them and the threats they face from each other, while nominally leaving the door open to an improvement in relations if one side addresses the other’s concerns.

Unlike the past, though, the stakes appear to be higher because of the uncertain future of Afghanistan and a ‘nuclear overhang’ that may be affected by ‘Cold Start’.

Here is a interesting report in the News on polls conducted in India and Pakistan on relations between the two nations:

By Mohammad Malick

ISLAMABAD: The two nations have repeatedly gone to war in the past. Their governments continue sabre rattling and spewing bellicose rhetoric. But identical nationwide opinion surveys conducted by the Jang Group and the Times of India Group in India and Pakistan show that a majority of the billion and a half people of the sub-continent want to live as peaceful and friendly neighbours and share the same humane goals like any other civilised polity; economic prosperity for all, education for the youth, health for the needy, absence of violence and elimination of existential threats.

In Pakistan, 72 per cent of the respondents desired “peaceful and friendly relations with India” whereas 60 per cent Indians were hopeful of such an eventuality. This relative lesser percentage may be owing to the fact that presently 88 per cent of Indians consider Pakistan as a high/moderate threat to India’s well being. In contrast, 72 per cent Pakistanis perceive India as a high/moderate threat. The 88 per cent threat perception notwithstanding, it is heartening to note, however, that over 59 per cent of Indians think that a peaceful relationship would be established with Pakistan within their lifetime, an optimism shared by 64 percent Pakistanis.

While vested interests on both sides may have led the people to believe that every Pakistani wakes up paranoid with India and that every Indian goes to bed fretting over the next deadly Pakistani move, statistics show otherwise. Half the people polled in India thought about Pakistan “sometimes”, while only 16 per cent thought about us in a more focused manner. As for Pakistanis, 32 per cent appeared to be seriously concerned over the state of our bilateral relations. Hardly the figures for two peoples supposedly obsessed with each other’s ultimate annihilation, would not you agree?

anon: "I wonder if this is the same in Pakist...

2009-12-21T09:05:41.971-08:00

anon: "I wonder if this is the same in Pakistan."

Paklistanis have their share of hyperpatriots, though probably not as numerous or vocal as in India.

Irfan Hussain, a Dawn columnist and harsh critic of Pakistan, shared the following anecdote with his readers:

A foreign journalist working for a newsmagazine's South Asian bureau says he loves Pakistan because "In India, when you write a critical article, the people are furious with you. In Pakistan, when you write a critical article, everyone agrees with you."

Unfortunately people like Shekhar Gupta, though t...

2009-12-20T23:41:24.134-08:00

Unfortunately people like Shekhar Gupta, though they may exist in large numbers in India, are generally out-shouted by the emotional types in the media.

Obviously the people close to power will side with the noisy, over-emotional types who may (or may not) represent the thoughts of the intelligentsia, or even the people.

I wonder if this is the same in Pakistan.

An Indian reader

Here's an interesting report by Reuters in Pakistan:

By Alistair Scrutton

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - If you want a slice of peace and stability in a country with a reputation for violence and chaos, try Pakistan's M2 motorway.

At times foreign reporters need to a give a nation a rest from their instinctive cynicism. I feel like that with Pakistan each time I whizz along the M2 between Islamabad and Lahore, the only motorway I know that inspires me to write.

Now, if the M2 conjures images of bland, spotless tarmac interspersed with gas stations and fast food outlets, you would be right. But this is South Asia, land of potholes, reckless driving and the occasional invasion of livestock.

And this is Pakistan, for many a "failed state." Here, blandness can inspire almost heady optimism.

Built in the 1990s at a cost of around $1 billion, the 228-mile (367-km) motorway -- which continues to Peshawar as the M1 -- is like a six-lane highway to paradise in a country that usually makes headlines for suicide bombers, army offensives and political mayhem.

Indeed, for sheer spotlessness, efficiency and emptiness there is nothing like the M2 in the rest of South Asia.

It puts paid to what's on offer in Pakistan's traditional foe and emerging economic giant India, where village culture stubbornly refuses to cede to even the most modern motorways, making them battlegrounds of rickshaws, lorries and cows.

There are many things in Pakistan that don't get into the news. Daily life, for one. Pakistani hospitality to strangers, foreigners like myself included, is another. The M2 is another sign that all is not what it appears in Pakistan, that much lies hidden behind the bad news.

On a recent M2 trip, my driver whizzed along but kept his speedometer firmly placed on the speed limit. Here in this South Asian Alice's Wonderland, the special highway police are considered incorruptible. The motorway is so empty one wonders if it really cuts through one of the region's most populated regions.

"130, OK, but 131 is a fine," said the driver, Noshad Khan. "The police have cameras," he added, almost proudly. His hand waved around in the car, clenched in the form of a gun.

On one of my first trips to Pakistan. I arrived at the border having just negotiated a one-lane country road in India with cows, rickshaws and donkey-driven carts.

I toted my luggage over to the Pakistan side, and within a short time my Pakistani taxi purred along the tarmac. The driver proudly showed off his English and played U.S. rock on FM radio. The announcer even had an American accent. Pakistan, for a moment, receded, and my M2 trip began.

Built in the 1990s by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, it was part of his dream of a motorway that would unite Pakistan with Afghanistan and central Asia.

For supporters it shows the potential of Pakistan. Its detractors say it was a waste of money, a white elephant that was a grandiose plaything for Sharif.

But while his dreams for the motorway foundered along with many of Pakistan, somehow the Islamabad-Lahore stretch has survived assassinations, coups and bombs.

A relatively expensive toll means it is a motorway for the privileged. Poorer Pakistanis use the older trunk road nearby tracing an ancient route that once ran thousands of miles to eastern India. The road is shorter, busier and takes nearly an hour longer.

On my latest trip, I passed the lonely occasional worker in an orange suit sweeping the edge of the motorway in a seemingly Sisyphean task.

Here's a report from India Today on India army-air force debate over cold start:

The army and air force are battling it out over how to beat Pakistan in a flash war if and when that happens.

The Indian Air Force is not convinced about its role in the army's "cold start doctrine" for a future Indo-Pak war.

The strategy envisages the air force providing "close air support", which calls for aerial bombing of ground targets to augment the fire power of the advancing troops.

The growing tension between the two services is evident in a statement of air vice-marshal (retd) Kapil Kak, deputy director of the air force's own Centre for Air Power Studies.

"There is no question of the air force fitting itself into a doctrine propounded by the army. That is a concept dead at inception," Kak said.

A senior army officer disputes the notion of a conceptual difference between the two services. "The air force is supposed to launch an offensive under the doctrine by hitting targets deep inside enemy territory," he said. But he admitted the air force was hesitant about 'close air support'. 'Cold Start' is a post-nuclearised doctrine that envisages a "limited war" in which the army intends to inflict substantial damage on Pakistan's armed forces without letting it cross the threshold where it could think of pressing the nuclear button.

The doctrine intends to accomplish the task before the international community led by the US and China could intercede to end hostilities. Kak said, "The air force has the primary task of achieving 'air dominance' by which Pakistan's air force is put out of action allowing the army to act at will."

But he sees little necessity for the air force to divert frontline fighter aircraft for augmenting the army's fire power, a task that, in his opinion, can be achieved by the army's own attack helicopters and multiple rocket launchers that now have a 100-km range.

But he agrees the two services should work according to a joint plan. It means the air force would launch 'battlefield air strikes' to neutralise threats on the ground based on an existing plan. But that would be different from an army commander calling for air support on the basis of a developing war scenario.

That is not the only problem facing the doctrine. In the past few weeks, many have expressed doubts about the army's ability to launch operations on the basis of the new doctrine.

There are also apprehensions about the army's incomplete deployment of forces, lack of mobility and unattended infrastructure development.

But senior officers say the army has identified the units, which would constitute the eight division-strong independent battle groups out of its three strike corps. These battle groups would comprise mechanised infantry, artillery and armour.

"The forces have exercised as constituted battle groups at least six times since 2004. Each of the identified unit knows where they will be deployed," a senior General said.

According to him, the time for deployment has been cut down to "days". "No longer will the movement of troops require three months like it did when Operation Parakram was launched after the attack on Parliament in 2001," he said.

The army also debunks the idea that the troops lack mobility. Some armed forces observers have said only 35 per cent of the army is mobile inside the country.

They have, thus, concluded that even less numbers would be mobile inside the enemy territory.

The army officials, however, pooh pooh the criticism claiming 100 per cent of the Indian troops are mobile.

Here's an interesting opinion by Irfan Hussain who is often praised and cited by Indians when he harshly criticizes Pakistan:

A year later (after Mumbai), perhaps we can look back on the attack with a greater degree of objectivity, and count the winners and the losers.

The real winners, of course, are militant groups, like the Lashkar-i-Taiba, and their shadowy backers in Pakistan. They have achieved what they set out to do: sabotage the peace talks between India and Pakistan. Although these negotiations had not achieved a breakthrough, they had greatly improved relations between India and Pakistan.

The second prize goes to the security establishments in both countries, although this is truer of Pakistan than it is of India where the military is firmly under civilian control. The reality is that soldiers and spies need enemies to justify their lavish budgets. Peace between traditional enemies means cuts in defence, and less toys for the boys.

Obviously, the biggest losers are the victims of the attack, and their friends and families. But the other big losers are the people of the subcontinent. Millions in the region will continue suffering, just because their leaders remain locked in a 60-year old conflict. And when there was a glimmer of hope of some kind of resolution, relations have plunged to a new low.

The militants’ victory is not restricted to poisoning bilateral relations between India and Pakistan: by hitting Mumbai, it has ensured that there will be no cooperation between the two countries in the war against extremism in the foreseeable future.

This is no small victory. The war being waged on the Pak-Afghan border is perhaps the most decisive conflict of our times, and its outcome will affect the region for years to come. In order to combat the Taliban and their various partners effectively, active cooperation between India and Pakistan is crucial.

After the Mumbai attack, India has refused to pursue peace talks, arguing that as long as Pakistan tolerates the presence of terrorist organisations on its soil, there can be no meaningful negotiations. Again and again, the Indian leadership and media have echoed the mantra of Pakistan ‘not doing enough’ against the planners of the Mumbai attack.

In several articles, I have argued that it is precisely because of the atrocity that peace talks need to be pursued with greater focus and political will. Does India really want to hand a major victory to the perpetrators of the attack?

I have also suggested that in order to reassure the Pakistani military that it has nothing to fear on its eastern border, India could easily withdraw one of its divisions deployed there. This would encourage Pakistan to transfer more troops to its northwest where the real battle against extremists is now going on.

They miss the point that one negotiates with one’s adversaries, not one’s friends. And they have the bizarre notion that peace is a reward for good behaviour, not a mutual need. The fact is that India needs peace just as much as Pakistan does. True, it is Pakistan that is currently being battered by an unrelenting wave of terrorism. But a Pakistan destabilised by extremist violence should be New Delhi’s worst nightmare.

Those who think a victorious Taliban would stop their mayhem on Pakistan’s eastern border are living in cloud-cuckoo land. These thugs have no respect for international boundaries, and have repeatedly declared their intention to ‘liberate’ Kashmir. Many of them also want to re-establish Muslim rule over India. These insane goals will ensure that terrorist groups will go on trying to hit Indian targets.

Here's a BBC report on Karkare's wife demanding inquiry of her husband's murder:

The wife of a top police officer killed in the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) has demanded an inquiry into his death.

Kavita Karkare said she had still not been told exactly how her husband died, a year after the attacks.

Anti-terrorism chief Hemant Karkare was killed along with two senior police officers outside the Cama hospital.

At least 174 people, including 14 policemen, died when 10 gunmen attacked sites in the city on 26 November 2008.

One of the gunmen was caught alive and is currently on trial. Nine others were killed.

Body armour questions

Mrs Karkare told reporters: "So far no senior officer has told me what exactly happened that night."

She said she had discovered her husband's bulletproof jacket was missing after she filed a freedom of information request two months ago.

"I also came to know that the file which had the date of purchase is also missing."

Mrs Karkare is demanding answers following media reports which have questioned the quality of bulletproof jackets used by the police.

The wife of another officer killed alongside Mr Karkare has filed a similar "right to information (RTI)" request to see police records.

Vinita Kamte said she needed the information to reconstruct the sequence of events which led to the death of her husband, Ashok, and other police officers.

Mrs Kamte said she had received several records and was waiting for some more.

"I am studying the records of calls made to the police control room. It is unfortunate that we have to apply to RTI to get information and speak to the media about it."

'Trauma'

Mrs Karkare said the policemen who died had been treated as martyrs. But she asked if candlelit marches and compensation were enough to forget what happened.

Many relatives of policemen who lost their lives were undergoing psychiatric treatment to cope with the trauma, she added.

Police commissioner D Sivanadhan told the BBC that an inquiry was being conducted and further details were awaited.

An independent inquiry has already criticised the Mumbai police for a lack of co-ordination in dealing with the attacks.

"I believe Mushrif knows far more about the p...

2009-11-28T16:29:14.281-08:00

"I believe Mushrif knows far more about the power and machinations of India IB than you or I will ever know."

--> If there are traitors in IB then they will be exposed sooner than later. But, please stop bringing down the IB to the level of ISI. IB doesnt spy on its own citizens and would never go against the govt's wishes.
I shudder to think what conspiracy theories you and your Urdu press would come up with if there was a BJP govt at the center!
You have accused the thoroughly-secular Congress and "Mr.Clean" Dr.Manmohan Singh of supporting terrorists. If BJP were in power I would assume there wouldn't have been much difference between the kind of garbage that comes out of your Urdu Press and your blog. And, forget about accepting Kasab is a Pakistani you guys would counter claimed that he is actually an Indian spy trying to pretend to be a Pakistani.
Or, you would say "Hindus" are the only ones capable of killing innocent people and RSS and VHP are responsible for Mumbai as they wanted to stage a coup and overthrow the secular govt and establish a Hindu Republic in order to murder innocent Muslims.
See how creative I can be and connect the dots that apparently hadn't existed before?
India can fool the world once or twice but not all the time and apparently Pakistanis are the only one who can see through the "hindu" mindset and realize that IB is really responsible for Karkare!
I can only appreciate the creativity and sheer imagination of your Urdu press "journalists" and even some nutcases in India.

anoop: I believe Mushrif knows far more about th...

2009-11-28T13:55:53.418-08:00

anoop:

I believe Mushrif knows far more about the power and machinations of India IB than you or I will ever know.

"No, I did not suggest that anywhere. But wha...

2009-11-28T12:03:08.793-08:00

"No, I did not suggest that anywhere. But what Mushrif says stands. Mushrif believes that the extremist Sangh Parivar, with IB's help, took advantage of the opportunity created by Mumbai terror attacks to eliminate Karkare. Karkare's mysterious death, the appt of pliable Raguvanshi and the subsequent dismissal of some of the charges against Purohit support Mushrif's charges of collusion."

--> Riaz, this is not Pakistan and the govt is not rightist one and we are not ruled by a non-secular constitution . You and that guy Mushriff are connecting dots that dont even exist!
Purohit is in Jail,where he belongs and not preaching large crowds like Hafiz Saeed is. Comparing the 2 cases we can safely say Purohit is not going to be free like the terrorist Hafiz Saeed is.
If Purohit comes out of Jail anytime like Hafiz Saeed has, I will concede that our position has weakened.
Karkara's death was not mysterious and its proven beyond doubt it was a Pakistani Islamic-terrorist who killed him. To suggest IB would coordinate with the very forces they are built to fight is preposterous. IB is not under the army like in Pakistan but under firm Civilian control and its cadres are picked from the military as well as the civilian services and are the best in the business and patriotic. They are not a force like the ISI which has supported Islamic parties to bring down ZAB in the past. Their record is clean and I nor the nation don't have any reason to doubt their sincerity or efficiency.
Besides, what are you trying to prove? That IB is like the ISI?
How come Pakistanis(I know Mushriff is an Indian) are usually the only ones to suggest such a preposterous ideas?
Its like complimenting us in a way. We are fooling the world all the time with respect to our activities in Afghnanistan, IB supporting terrorists, with regard to Kashmir,etc. I guess Pakistanis are too intelligent to be fooled and they see right through us! We have failed miserably... :-(
I am reminded of a saying which says, "you can fool some all of the time or you can fool all some of the time. But, you cant fool all all of the time."

anoop: "So,you think India is responsible for...

2009-11-27T17:50:32.205-08:00

anoop: "So,you think India is responsible for Mumbai incident and covering up."

No, I did not suggest that anywhere. But what Mushrif says stands. Mushrif believes that the extremist Sangh Parivar, with IB's help, took advantage of the opportunity created by Mumbai terror attacks to eliminate Karkare. Karkare's mysterious death, the appt of pliable Raguvanshi and the subsequent dismissal of some of the charges against Purohit support Mushrif's charges of collusion.

"Mushrif believes that the Indian IB is up to...

2009-11-27T17:11:37.478-08:00

"Mushrif believes that the Indian IB is up to its neck in conspiring with the Hindutva groups against Muslims and creating troule between India and Pakistan, and now one of the former IB leaders KC Verma is heading RAW as of early this year."

---> So,you think India is responsible for Mumbai incident and covering up. If my fellow Indians hadn't died in that incident i'd have laughed it off. Ok lets say India is responsible and not Pakistan. Then,
1)why did Pakistan accept that conspirators from its soil?
2)Why did the UN security council banned JUD? Was India able to fool all the premier intelligence agencies in the world,including Pakistan's?
3)Who is Kasab? And,why did you TV channels went in search of his identity,story which brought Pakistani govt to its knees and were forced to accept he is a Pakistani?
4)Why is the world silent about this incident when it is so obvious for a middle aged guy sitting in front of a computer?
5)Is that guy who wrote the book a intelligence guy and I didnt know people in bureaucracy had this intimate knowledge about Intelligence matters? How does he know all this? He has some mighty intelligence knowledge!
6)Why on earth has the Pakistani govt banned a "charity" organization like JuD? Isn't it criminal to ban an organization that has done so much for Muslims?

Riaz, suggesting India and Indians were responsible for Mumbai is like saying 9/11 was done by Isreal and Indian agents. You can even argue that America let it happen intentionally so that it can achieve its "strategic objectives".

"You either don't understand the facts here, are you are choosing to deliberately dismiss the facts.

--->WHAT FACTS?????? You are connecting dots that dont even exist!
I spoke about the newyorker video about paranoia in Pakistan. I had also mentioned about how increasingly Pakistan's elite,educated are believing non-nonsensical conspiracy theories. You,my friend,belong to that category. Its so sad that educated men like you believe in this crap. What is more alarming is there are many educated,privileged even secular minded Pakistanis who are like you. I'll give you the link again in the hope you will approve it.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/11/11/world/1247465633296/tuning-out-the-taliban.html

I see a country suffering from deep paranoia and cant decide which side of the fence they live in. I see a country where yesteryear's friend's have become today's enemies.

"It's routine in India to blame every thing on ISI and Pakistan where scant evidence exists. Take the case of Samjhota Express blast that killed a large number of Pakistanis was carried out by Purohit and the gang but blamed by India's IB on ISI."

--> Dont forget its the sinister Indian intelligence and not any non-Indian institutions that broke the plot about Samjhota blasts and Melegaun. You guys didnt even accept that Kasab was a Pakistan until it was inevitable! See how effective and honest our agencies are? Pakistan also blindly accepted like us it was terrorists from their side just because its so easy to believe that as Pakistan has become in this decade the epicenter of Terror.
WE and our Intelligence agency headed by a Hindu revealed the Plot about those blasts.

"The power establishment that really runs the affairs of this country "

--> I've no words Riaz. Only a fellow Pakistani(sane one that is) can counter this argument. I being a voter know its not true and frankly,I dont need anyone else to believe that. But, if its THAT important for you to think India is actually run by its intelligence agencies to justify all the stupid,nonsensical things you keep talking about go ahead. This argument doesnt hurt me or my country in any way. So good luck with convincing people about this argument.
At this time I am reminded of words from the video where a Pakistani observer points out the sickness that is engulfing Pakistan in the form of Patriot-conservative-Islamist apologists..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8367612.stm ...

2009-11-20T03:40:40.649-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8367612.stm

Indian justice system is punishing those who attacked christians in orissa. Can the same be said about Pakistan when Ahmediyas and Shias, Christians and Hindus are killed.
In India there is no way a TV program will be shown asking for muslims to be killed. Watch Dr. Israr Ahmed's program where he advocates killing of Ahmediyas on account of being burtad.

anon: "It seems India does a far better job i...

2009-11-19T20:32:17.577-08:00

anon: "It seems India does a far better job in convincing rest of the world , specially the west."

I don't disagree.